9 Crimes
by OpheliacAngel
Summary: It seems like Ruby has more than 9 lives… she has to remember that Bela isn't so lucky. Alternative take to Seasons 3 & 4. Ruby 1.0/Bela. Title comes from Damien Rice's song. Hope you enjoy it and happy Valentine's Day!


**Title: **9 Crimes

**Author: **OpheliacAngel

**Pairing: **Ruby 1.0/Bela

**Genre: **Romance/Angst

**Rating: **Teen

**Summary: **It seems like Ruby has more than 9 lives… she has to remember that Bela isn't so lucky. Alternative take to Season 3 & 4. In other words, Ruby hasn't switched into her second vessel or lead Sam down into temptation.

**A/N & Song Featured: **I've been listening to this song ever since I heard it last month, about fifty million times, both the version with Lisa Hannigan and the True Blood version, the latter which I like a tiny bit better. Go listen to it, it's gorgeous and is by Damien Rice. I wanted to do a little Ruby/Bela piece for Valentine's Day in honor of this song… so enjoy.

**~OA~~**

**~It's the wrong time**

**She's pulling me through**

**It's a small crime**

**And I got no excuse~**

**~OA~~**

_~Month 1~ Catching Glimpse of Bela ~Crime 1~ Self-Deceiving_

She wonders if true love could exist. In this moment, at just a mere first glance, in her head and in her heart and in her mouth.

To feel her taste buds explode other than when munching on French fries. When she lays her lips on hers after waiting an innumerably long ass period of time, while daydreaming of her, how she would look in the moonlight that streams from a measly hotel window as they lay on the bed next to each other, skin glistening with sweats, mouths opening and closing spastically from kissing at times where they don't think they'll be able to kiss anymore. Their fingertips quivering with the feel of each other.

But anyway, Ruby's jumping ahead of herself. She's only talking about the first glimpse of her, all the imaginings the demon had in that first second, seeing her with the Winchester boys and surprised that they had a woman this beautiful with them. Even more surprised that she instantly fell head over heels in love with her, even with all the danger signs blaring in her head complete with ear splitting sirens and the belief, the realization that that same woman she could not stop staring at wouldn't love her as she knew she already did.

Ruby had sighed, brushed her hair back behind her ears and walked away. The split second decision only lasted for that long before she turned back around and realized Bela had caught sight of her.

Her eyes exploded with glee, heart thumped loudly with hope and passion and millions of other emotions like lust and the rage that she was forced to control her body at that moment when she so wanted her.

The thing is, Bela had looked away after no more than a half second, had turned back to the Winchester brothers to finish whatever discussion they were having, to flirt with them and try to act like she was better than them.

Ruby was ashamed she took it the wrong way… but she did.

She dug her fingernails into her palms and walked away from that perfect woman that proved to her she was still human in a lot of ways. She could still love and obsess and…

For all of two weeks she assumed Bela didn't feel the same way about her, was selfish in that aspect.

It would have been the death of her had Bela not acted just in time.

_~Month 2~ Moths Toward Flame ~Crime 2~ Disbelieving_

The demon finds out she's a thief less than a week after she first sees her. A gorgeously beautiful thief.

It only makes Ruby want her more, only makes her head explode with need and want all rolled into one gloriously delicious package. She licks her lips, doesn't taste French fries there anymore, instead Bela. What she imagines Bela to taste like.

She'd been lying if she said that she didn't desperately want to know.

Then she finds out more about the human, her past, the pain she's experienced and suddenly Ruby can connect in so many ways, wants Bela to know this. She wants to throw herself on top of Bela and make sweet love to her, scream out her name amidst throes of pleasure, confess that she's what she's been waiting for… for so long, entirely too long. That she's all she could ever want and more.

She didn't think it would be possible at that point to want Bela more than she already did but it was. Bela was single, hers for the taking, dangerous and beautiful and Ruby wouldn't give up.

It took longer than she would've liked but then she and Bela soared toward one another like two moths craving heat and light amongst the darkness. Their wings flapping against one another frantically, needy, desperate, unable to exist without the other's familiar and soothing touch. Their savory beings.

Yes, the demon knew what her heart screamed. The name, the reason why, the promises.

Ruby had a feeling all along it wouldn't last… she thinks that might have been her ultimate mistake.

_~Month 3~ A week before Bela's descent into Hell~ ~Crime 3~ Neglecting_

Ruby's eyes glaze over pitch black without a moment's thought, mere instinct than anything else which is always an effect of the rage she finds so hard to hold back. She thinks of all she could have given Bela, not just her heart but something more. She wonders if anything even matters at this point, why she always has to fall for the doomed ones, the people that either don't love her or do but end up perishing long before the words even reach her silent lips.

_I never realized how much I loved her. _

_Never realized until it was too late. _

Her lips part, words expecting release as if Bela is right there, watching her and awaiting her voice. The truth is that the demon is utterly alone now and devastated because of it. She should be with Bela but Ruby finds it too hard, which is why she ran away in the first place.

Which is why she abandoned the love of her life.

_~Month 4~ Several weeks after Bela's demise ~Crime 4~ Discarding_

The demon knows she's not holding it together well, especially when she realizes with a heavy heart and stuttering breaths that Bela is still in hell, rotting, screaming, suffering and Ruby was there for hardly no time at all, so skilled with the maze of hell that she completely knew her way out. She's lucky she managed to obtain her previous vessel.

She's not kidding herself, Ruby knows she doesn't deserve an ounce of anything she's gotten, this pathetic life, her deep fried crack which she doesn't even want because it reminds her too much of Bela.

Her life just isn't sweet anymore, there's no reason to be in it unless she's backstabbing, betraying, etc. Her specialties. And then there's always the hope that if she somehow manages to get within Alistair's good graces, Bela will be returned to her whole again, as beautiful as she was before she left. Even when she first noticed her.

_I miss her hair… how elegant it looked and the way in which it hung like a halo around her face and cascaded down her brilliant shoulders. _

_I miss how she used to call me Rubes… how she said it and how I could tell that I meant everything to her._

Now it's like she's throwing Bela's memory away.

_~Month 5~ Bela's Return ~Crime 5~ Stupidity_

It's horrifying how utterly broken Bela is to her, how plaint she is in her uncertain and terribly shaky grasp. She feels as if she would break her any second, simply tear her apart at the seams because hell took nearly everything from her and she was barely able to piece her back together after she found her.

Managed to at least enough so she could get her to a decent motel room.

Bela pretty much may be dead at this point for how unresponsive she is, how cold and lifeless her gaze seems, the fact that she merely lies on the bed, limp, a terrifying dead weight that Ruby finds hard to glance at yet will forever stay by her side.

She brushes the hair back from her face and kisses her forehead gently. Bela blinks and her eyes move from their previous position of the disgusting ceiling to her own beautiful blues, as her girlfriend so affectionately deemed them in a different life.

"Rubes?" Her voice is a whisper, a gasp, though it's the only word spoken by Bela since her return and Ruby cherishes it.

Even more so because it's her name.

She smiles. And then the poor, broken human… _Her_ poor, broken human decides to check out of consciousness, eyes slipping shut and body going aggravatingly still. She blinks back tears, rubs a hand across her face and departs the bed she chose for them to share.

Ruby turns her back on her, convinces herself she's merely taking a breath, going to the bathroom to clean herself up, brush back her hair and pull herself together so she can go back out there and be a perfect girlfriend. Something she's quite honestly, never been able to be. To live up to.

The demon turns away from her for a mere second and Ruby knows that she will never make that mistake again.

_~Month 6~ French Fry Blues ~Crime 6~ Not Acknowledging_

Ruby is taking it slow.

Maybe she's taking it too slow but that doesn't matter to her in the slightest at this point because she's determined to take it at a turtle's crawl.

She's long past trying to quell the shaking of her hands as she plunges another French fry in her little puddle of ketchup at a desperate yet utterly pathetic attempt to forbid herself from reaching out to Bela, who sits in the booth across from her, silent and staring out the window.

Better… a little better anyway. A lot more than Ruby knows she deserves.

_That's it, Ruby. Just keep your mind on something else. Twirl your fry in the ketchup, think of better days where your gorgeous girlfriend sitting right across from you would bring you greasy bags of fries and never ever forget the ketchup to go along so perfectly with them._

Bela is the ketchup to her fries.

Even a few minutes before, not even a month out of hell, Bela had shocked the demon to the core when she boldly called the waitress back to their table and scolded her at the fact that there wasn't a bottle of ketchup in sight, demanded she bring it at once before turning back to the window.

Ruby had smiled at that, rather grinned at that adorable scene which brought such hope to her heart, that maybe all wasn't lost after all, taken to hell where it burned and burned in unquenchable fire. Unfortunately, Bela hadn't seen it and she forgot to say thanks.

To tell her how much that little gesture had meant to a mere demon like her.

_~Month 7~ A Glance into Remaining Humanity ~Crime 7~ Pretending _

She can see it more and more every day.

There's the little things, such as catching a glimpse of her secretly smiling at something her girlfriend had done, running her fingers through her hair as she gazes upon herself in the mirror, something Ruby had previously insisted on doing herself.

Bela looks at her, she means _really _ looks at her sometimes, like she used to.

_Beautiful… heartbreaking… yet so irrevocably perfect…_

_My Bela's coming back for me. _

Ruby pretends not to notice. Satisfied with just pretending she doesn't notice even though she clearly does.

She should have let Bela know.

_~Month 8~ Head Over Heels… Again ~Crime 8~ Pushing_

Now the demon starts to turn a little impatient.

When Bela begs for sleep she pushes, begs her to stay up just another minute because Ruby is sick of being alone in the dark, sick of watching Bela cope in the only way she apparently knows how, being unconscious and sometimes it sickens her to see it this way.

Then the human tells her she's not hungry, such a constant thing and sometimes Ruby does give in, just cause she's a good girlfriend, or at least is trying to be and is willing to give her human one little thing that she wants. Most of the time she doesn't though. Instead she watches Bela like a hawk, makes a mental note in her head of how much she has eaten that day and primarily, how much she still needs to eat.

It's no secret that Bels can get a little pissed off about this thing she does.

And then there was the time where she asked Ruby not to sleep in the same bed with her. It wasn't even about the fact that she made sure there was only one bed in the room when she booked it, just cause she wanted to maintain a close distance to her human, but because she even thought that, let alone spoke it made Ruby hit the wall in outrage.

_Come on, Bels. I know you're still in there. Waiting for me to bring you back yet I just don't know how yet._

One thing either Bela has forgotten or has never really learned is that you never tell a demon what to do. Especially when it comes to the person they care about. And since demons don't tend to give their hearts to people, it only makes Ruby pissed off and nearly unforgiving even more.

So yeah, times have been a little tough. And the both of them have been a little, though that is a _huge _understatement, touchy.

But the truth is that Bela is getting better, and Ruby is learning how to control herself in these awkward and aggravating situations better. And some days, the really happy for her days, she manages to forget about everything above because Bela has done something wonderful, whether it was rewarding her with a mere kiss on the cheek, which was yesterday by the way, or allowing the demon to curl up behind her and hold her for hours, never once falling asleep and never once drifting away so she didn't have to face reality.

Ruby would cry if she were any less of a badass chick.

The thing is, she did kinda cry that one night in the bathroom when it all came rushing up to greet her and smacked her square in the face.

She was falling in love… again.

And there was nothing more perfect than that in the world, which is why she reminds herself constantly to just stop pushing for once in her life and just admire the view before her.

_~Month 9~ Amidst Destruction, There is Something More ~Crime 9~ Wasting Precious Time_

"I want to be with you, Bels. More than anything."

Bela's hazels flicker to her own blues in shock, in pleasure, in everything Ruby could truly want.

"Is that alright with you?"

"Yeah." Bela's smile starts off small before blossoming from a pale, degraded rose in the wintertime to a vibrant and rich red rose in the springtime, the grin illuminating her angelic features, her lips red as rubies, intoxicating brunette hair cascading down her shoulders like an endless irresistible waterfall.

"It's perfect, Rubes."

The sunset lies in the backdrop, just beyond the cracked window, causing the human's hazels to sparkle wickedly as she looks upon Ruby, the demon who has her girlfriend back, the demon whose hope has been rekindled into an unquenchable flame.

Ruby figures she has it all… everything she could ever want wrapped up in one pretty little package. A pretty little package she will always treasure and love.

And there's certainly no crime in that.

Except the fact that it took her this long.

**FIN**


End file.
